opinion of our friends was the same.1 The working people still desired the North to fight it out.2

66

The most culpable act of negligence is yet to be recorded. As early as June 23 Adams called the attention of Earl Russell to a more powerful war steamer" than the Florida which was being completed at Liverpool and which was nearly ready for departure. This ship became on her second christening the Alabama. Adams asked that she be prevented from sailing unless the fact should be established that her purpose was not inimical to the United States. The communication was referred to the proper department, and in the course of business reached Liverpool, where the sympathy of the community with the Confederate States was notorious. The surveyor of the port, who undoubtedly suspected for whom the ship-of-war was intended, took care to shut his eyes to any condemning evidence, and made a colorless statement which was submitted by the Commissioners of Customs in London to their solicitor, and was adjudged by him to be sufficient ground for advising against her seizure. The commissioners in their communication to the Lords of the Treasury concurred in the opinion of their legal adviser, but

1 "The last news from your side has created regret among your friends and pleasure among your enemies. I am grieved at it. I do not lose faith in your cause, but I wish I had less reason to feel anxious about you." — Bright to Sumner, July 12. "There is an all but unanimous belief that you cannot subject the South to the Union. . . . I feel quite convinced that unless cotton comes in considerable quantities before the end of the year, the governments of Europe will be knocking at your door."- Cobden to Sumner, July 11. "We have just heard of the apparent defeat of your army before Richmond. At least, such is the construction put on the telegraphic news here. Will it only excite the government the more to more determined efforts - or will it tend to induce a disposition to concede a separation? We are all speculating." — Duke of Argyll to Sumner, July 12 "I cannot believe in there being any Union party in the South, and if not, can the continuance of the war be justified?" — Duchess of Argyll to Sumner, July 12. All these from Pierce-Sumner Papers, MS.

2 On this subject in general see the Times, July 14, 16, 18, 21, 22; the Daily News, July 11, 16, 22, 29; the Spectator, July 12, 19, Aug. 2; Saturday Review, July 12, 19, 26, Aug. 2, 9; Adams's letters to Seward and his diary for July.

3 Part ii. p. 180.

said that "the officers at Liverpool will keep a strict watch on the vessel." All these papers came to Earl Russell, who, on the advice of the Attorney-General and SolicitorGeneral, suggested to Adams that the United States consul at Liverpool (Dudley) be instructed to submit to the collector of the port any evidence that confirmed his suspicion. Adams and Dudley were indefatigable, and July 9 Dudley addressed to the collector a letter which no impartial man could have read without being convinced that the vessel in question was designed for the Southern Confederacy. The greater part of his statements, writes Chief Justice Cockburn in his opinion dissenting from the award of the Geneva Tribunal, "could not have been made available in an English Court." But the moral evidence was complete, and needed only time and opportunity to convert it into legal proof. It is not surprising that in the analysis of the historical laboratory the result reached is that the collector, the solicitor, and the Commissioners of Customs knew in their hearts that the Alabama was intended for the Confederate government, secretly wished that she might get away, and since they had not strictly a legal case against her persuaded themselves that they were performing their official duty. Chief Justice Cockburn, who puts the best face possible upon the action of the English authorities, intimates that at this juncture these officials should have addressed an inquiry to the Messrs. Laird, demanding for whom this warship was designed. "If it had been," he adds, "the high character of these gentlemen would doubtless have insured either a refusal to answer or a truthful answer. The former would have helped materially to establish a case against the

1 Part i. p. 36.

2 This was the opinion signed June 30: "If the representation made by Mr. Adams is in accordance with the facts, the building and equipment of the steamer is a manifest violation of the Foreign Enlistment act, and steps ought to be taken to put that act in force and to prevent the vessel from going to sea."— Part i. p. 36; see also Earl Selborne, Memorials, vol. ii. p. 421.

3 Part ii. p. 183.

vessel, the latter would have justified her immediate seizure." 1 This criticism is unanswerable. To require from Dudley direct proof which he must procure in a hostile community, with the quiet opposition probably of an unsympathetic and technical bureaucracy, was unfriendly and exasperating.

Three weeks had passed since the customs officials at Liverpool and London had been enjoined to find out the truth, but had they actually conspired to suppress it, they would hardly have acted differently. They showed no disposition to search for proof, and carped at the evidence offered them." July 17 Adams wrote Dudley to employ a solicitor and secure affidavits to submit to the collector. Four days later Dudley and his solicitor brought to the collector direct proof. Six persons deposed to the character and destination of the vessel; five of whom showed it to be reasonably probable that the Alabama was destined for the Southern Confederacy, while the sixth, a mariner of Birkenhead, swore that "it is well known by the hands on board that the vessel is going out as a privateer for the Confederate government to act against the United States under a commission from Mr. Jefferson Davis." We cannot detain the vessel, says the collector. Insufficient evidence, says the solicitor of customs. You are both right, say the commissioners. The work of getting the Alabama ready went on with swiftness and zeal, while the Circumlocution Office moved with the pace of a snail. The papers went to the Lords of the Treasury.

Meanwhile Adams had retained a Queen's Counsel of eminence, R. P. Collier, to whom the six depositions and two additional ones were submitted. Collier's opinion is in no uncertain tone. "I am of opinion," he wrote, "that the collector of customs would be justified in detaining the vessel. Indeed, I should think it his duty to detain her. . . . It appears difficult to make out a stronger case of infringement of the Foreign Enlistment act, which, if not enforced on this occasion, is little better than a dead letter. It well deserves

1 Part ii. p. 184.

2 Adams, part i. p. 37.

3 Part ii. p. 185.

consideration, whether, if the vessel be allowed to escape, the Federal government would not have serious grounds of remonstrance."1 This opinion went to the customs authorities at Liverpool. "It was the duty of the collector of customs at Liverpool," declares Cockburn, "as early as the 22d of July to detain this vessel." 2 The collector would not act, and referred the matter to his superiors, the Commissioners of Customs. Insufficient evidence is still the word of the assistant solicitor of customs, who adds, I cannot concur in Collier's views. At this stage of the proceedings, writes Cockburn, "it became in my opinion the duty of the Commissioners of Customs at once to direct the seizure to be made. Misled by advice which they ought to have rejected as palpably erroneous, they unfortunately refused to cause the vessel to be seized."3

In the mean time Adams had sent the affidavits, the opinion of Collier, and many other papers relating to the case to Earl Russell. "I ought to have been satisfied with the opinion of Sir Robert Collier," wrote Russell in after years, with a candor which does him honor, "and to have given orders to detain the Alabama at Birkenhead." 4

Now ensues a scene which, useful as it would have been to the writer of an opera-bouffe libretto, or to Dickens for his account of the Circumlocution Office, completely baffles the descriptive pen of the historian. The papers received from the Commissioners of Customs and those which Adams had sent Russell were submitted to the law officers of the Crown, one set reaching them July 23, the other July 26; that is to say, they reached the senior officer, the Queen's Advocate, on those days. Sir John Harding, who was then the Queen's Advocate, had been ill and incapacitated for business since the latter part of June; in fact, his excitable nerves and weak constitution had succumbed to the strain of work, and he was now verging on insanity. At his private house these papers

1 Diplomatic Correspondence, 1862, p. 152. 8 Part ii. p. 190.

2 Part ii. p. 190.

4 Recollections and Suggestions, Earl Russell, p. 235, see, also, p. 332.

lay for five days. Work on the Alabama went on briskly, and everybody in the kingdom was satisfied with having done his duty. The collector had referred the matter to the Commissioners; the Commissioners had referred it to the Lords of the Treasury; the Lords and Earl Russell had referred it to the law officers of the Crown. The papers on which perhaps depended war or peace between two great nations either received no notice whatever, or were examined only by a lawyer who was going mad.1 Finally, on July 28, the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General got hold of the papers. Their report was conclusive. "We recommend," they said, July 29, "that without loss of time the vessel be seized by the proper authorities." 2 It was too late. The Alabama had left port that morning, and under pretence of a trial trip had gone out to sea. Yet she was still on the Welsh coast, only fifty miles from Liverpool, where the most ordinary energy on the part of the London and Liverpool authorities would have been sufficient to effect her apprehension before she started on the career which was to do so much in driving the American merchant marine from the high seas.

1 Part ii.; Mozley's Reminiscences, chap. xcii. vol. ii.; Lord Selborne's account in Reid's Life of Lord John Russell, p. 313; Sir H. James's statement in the House of Commons, March 17, 1893; Lord Selborne's letter in reply, Sir H. James's answer, and Selborne's rejoinder, Times, March 24, 1893.

2 Part ii. p. 188.

3" You have been,” said Cobden, May 13, 1864, “carrying on hostilities from these shores against the people of the United States, and have been inflicting an amount of damage on that country greater than would be produced by many ordinary wars. It is estimated that the loss sustained by the capture and burning of American vessels has been about $15,000,000, or nearly £3,000,000 sterling. But that is a small part of the injury which has been inflicted on the American marine. We have rendered the rest of her vast mercantile property for the present valueless." "There could not," said William E. Forster, May 13, 1864, "be a stronger illustration of the damage which had been done to the American trade by these cruisers than the fact, that, so completely was the American flag driven from the ocean, the Georgia, on her second cruise, did not meet a single American vessel in six weeks, though she saw no less than seventy vessels in a very few days." — - Hansard, quoted in Sumner's speech on the Johnson-Clarendon treaty, Sumner's Works, vol. xiii. pp. 77, 78.